About InstrumentServer#

InstrumentServer is part of the Tools For Experiments initiative—a collection of software tools developed by the Pfaff-lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Purpose#

InstrumentServer solves the problem of remote instrument access in modern laboratories. Whether you need to control laboratory equipment from a different machine, enable multiple researchers to access the same instruments simultaneously, or build distributed measurement systems, InstrumentServer provides a robust, scalable solution.

Design Philosophy#

InstrumentServer is built on practical experience with real laboratory needs:

  • Simplicity: Uses well-established ZMQ messaging patterns and QCoDeS integration

  • Reliability: Per-instrument locking ensures thread-safe concurrent access

  • Performance: Asynchronous request handling with concurrent instrument control

  • Transparency: Proxy objects provide native Python interfaces to remote instruments

Contributing#

InstrumentServer is open source and welcomes contributions. Visit the GitHub repository to report issues, submit pull requests, or participate in development.

Citation#

If you use InstrumentServer in your research, please cite the project:

@software{instrumentserver,
  title={InstrumentServer: Distributed QCoDeS Instrument Control},
  author={Pfaff, Wolfgang},
  url={https://github.com/toolsforexperiments/instrumentserver},
  year={2020}
}